Reducing Churn Rate for a B2B SaaS Product by Keeping Users Engaged with an Invoicing Feature

Paying for an invoice flow

User persona

Designing the solution

The core features that solve the problem include:

1. Invoice builder with automatic tax calculation
   • Customer field will be pre-filled for repeat customers to save time and avoid manual entries.
   • You can add a customer or a new product on the screen without having to navigate to another section to do it.
   • Manual tax calculation isn't needed. The software does it for you.
2. Status indicators
   • Visual indicators for invoice statuses with color-coded tags will be present.
   • The invoices will display their status: paid, pending, overdue, refunded, and failed so that users can keep track of payments.
   • Payment history, due date, and overdue alerts will help users keep track of payments and avoid problems with customers that haven't paid.
3. Payment Reminders
   • Users can send payment reminders whenever they want to the customers.

Low fidelity sketches

Main invoicing page

Creating an invoice

Customers page

Testing and iterating

I planned and conducted a remote usability testing through Askable using the low fidelity prototypes. I wanted to see if what I'm designing so far is easy to use and if task completion is possible.

Test objectives

• Determine if users can create, search for, and edit invoices easily.
• Evaluate how users navigate the interface.
• Determine if it’s intuitive.
• Get an accurate, detailed sense of how business owners manage invoices on their day-to-day by asking them questions such as:
  • Have you voided an invoice and/or processed a refund?
  • How important is your logo?
  • How is your invoicing process currently? What software do you use?

Methodology

• Test environment: Online moderated sessions through camera where the user shared their screen while performing a series of tasks
• Session duration: 30 minutes
• Total number of participants: 4
• Key performance indicators: Time on task, task completion rate, and product satisfaction rating
• Participant profile:
  
  • Must be a small or medium-sized business owner. They may also be a freelancer.
  • Must have experience creating invoices
  • Is located in USA
  • Currently employed
  • Sells physical products, digital products, or services
• Screener questions:
  • How do you generate income?
  • What is your industry?
  • If you own a business, what is the trading name of your business
  • What goods/services does your business sell?
  • Does your business have any of the following? - Web shop, Brick and mortar store, Both, I sell through other means other than web shop or brick and mortar store, or I don’t own a business
  • Do you use a Point of Sale (POS) system?
  • If you use a POS system, which one do you use?
  • Do you create invoices for your customers?

Usability test tasks

Task 1: Create an invoice

Scenario: You are about to charge a customer for a product or a service. How would you create an invoice using the software?

Objective: We want to know if the user is able to create an invoice.

Success criteria: The user created an invoice.

Task 2: Edit an invoice

Scenario: You are about to edit an invoice. How would you do it?

Objective: We want to know if the user is able to edit an invoice.

Success criteria: The user edited an invoice.

Task 3: Search for an invoice

Scenario: How would you search for an invoice?

Objective: We want to know if the user is able to search for an invoice.

Success criteria: The user search for an invoice.

Post-usability test questions

• On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the overall experience of creating an invoice, with 5 being the highest? Explain your reasoning.
• What would you change about this invoicing feature?
• What, if anything, caused you frustration?
• How does this invoicing feature compare to other similar websites or products that you’ve used before?

Test insights

• Overall, the navigation is straightforward and easy
• Despite participants showing positive opinions about the navigation and ease of use, they felt like it was incomplete and lacked essential features, such as:
  • Security 
  • Adding the recipient’s logo to the invoice and a note for the recipient
  • Adding descriptions to products, details, and identifiers beyond just the item name
  • Being able to see detailed customer information like billing addresses and logo
  • Having the ability to save items. One user felt like it was frustrating to have to enter the same item over and over instead of the system saving it. 
  • No way to add a title to the invoice (i.e. A painting commission for a restaurant)
• Business owners usually have their invoicing process. Participants mentioned they use PayPal, Square, Google Docs, and Quickbooks.
• Some participants have more than one method of payment. Sometimes use digital wallets like Cash App, Venmo, and PayPal. They also have their usual invoicing software/method.
• They search for invoices using different ways. This includes by name, amount, email, invoice title, or date.
• The business owners want to save time. It’s difficult to sift through so many invoices, so they felt like this can be mitigated by better ways to recognize invoices, such as being to search using several parameters, and mechanisms that help them to identify invoices like the company logo.
• Each business is different when it comes to invoicing. We received cases where business owners have done refunds, voids, and even handled overdue invoices. Ultimately, there is no one, single way invoicing plays out.
• There is a bug where the due date field isn’t detecting manual inputs of dates. It prevented one participant from creating an invoice quicker.
• The invoice table rows not being clickable is a problem that almost prevented a user from editing an invoice.

Key performance indicators

• Average time on task for creating an invoice: 2 minutes and 8 seconds.
• Average time on task for editing an invoice: 52 seconds.
• The average rating given by the participants for the user experience is 4.25, with 5 being the highest.
• The time on task for the invoice creation could have been less without the date field bug issue.

Quotes from participants

High fidelity prototypes

After testing the first version of the invoicing feature, I made changes according to user feedback.

Changes implemented based on feedback

• Users are now able to save products rather than typing them manually all the time for repeat orders.
• Item description field was added for additional item information.
• I added an Items section so they can access the list of items.
• Users can add a custom title to their invoice to identify them better.
• The search function was improved so that you can search invoices by other parameters besides name and email.
• I accounted for the wide variety of business needs and use cases by adding a way to void invoices, and making items as paid.

Create an invoice flow

Marking item as paid

Sending a payment reminder

Voiding an invoice

Adding a new item

Customer details

Item details

Lessons learned

• Iterating is important: I didn't wait until I designed the full product to test it. Rather, I built the first version, tested it, and then iterated. This saved more time and boosted productivity because we didn't have to go back and change the finished product.
• Iterative testing enhances outcomes: Testing prototypes with users provided actionable feedback, allowing refinements that made the final design intuitive, functional, and aligned with user needs.
• Transparency drives value: Real-time payment tracking and clear invoice statuses reduce user concerns.
• Simplicity outweighs feature overload: Our users valued how easy it is to carry out tasks. You don't need to add a significant amount of features to your product when users just want something that gets the job done fast and simple.

Next steps

• Conduct more rounds of usability tests with a broader audience, including different business sizes and industries, to ensure we stay up-to-date with user needs.
• Collect analytics and user feedback post-launch to identify areas for improvement, such as commonly requested functionalities.
• Build seamless integrations with popular accounting software (e.g., QuickBooks, Xero) and payment platforms (e.g., Stripe, PayPal) to streamline workflows.
• Plan for scalability by identifying additional features, such advanced tax reporting and other tax needs businesses may have.